Building humans, not robots: how to systematically grow people’s ability to take responsibility.
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time: 11 mins
Summary: Robots follow rules. Humans create and implement principles (theorems). Build humans, not robots.
I believe you can systematically build conceptual understanding of theorems in others - see strategies below.
I believe that everyone has the ability to innovate (eg see ‘building earned secrets’).
Innovation = building little theorems that help you more than they hinder you.
I believe that you can systematically upgrade your ability to innovate and also do the same in others - see strategies below.
Jingle:
Creating innovation that is good for the world => rewarding fun.
Upgrading yourself into someone who can innovate => IMO one path to a good life
Upgrading others who into people who can innovate => IMO one path to a good world
+++++++++++++++
Details
A new hire should increase the decision making ability of a business
In some respects, a business is the amount of decisions it can make
Hopefully, each hire should :
1. increase the overall number of decisions a business can make, and
2. increase the amount of people that can make decisions.
Another way of saying this is “a business is the amount of responsibility it can shoulder.”
Decisions = Responsibility = Conceptual Understanding (definitions below).
So if you grow the amount of Conceptual Understanding in your business, you grow the capacity of your business.
IMO try to get good at systematically growing Conceptual Understanding in yourself and others!
Reportability ⇔ Responsibility
Rule = Reportability = Doesn’t require understanding
Is black and white.
There is no interpretation.
Requires zero understanding to implement.
Eg you are a factory worker in a production line doing the same repetitive task. You need to put the piece in place with a certain tolerance in a certain time.
Principle = Theorem = Responsibility = Requires understanding
Is grey.
Requires interpretation.
Requires understanding and judgement to implement.
Eg a teacher. How do I best help this student understand the concept?
Eg a sales person. How do I explain how this textbook best helps this teacher and their students?
Eg an author. How do I best write this theory, questions and answers for conceptual understanding of the curriculum?
Each situation is different so you need to ‘understand’ the principle and then custom apply it for each situation.
IMO the vast majority of jobs require ‘Responsibility’. How do you build understanding?
Procedural understanding ⇔ Conceptual understanding
Procedural learning
Only follows the rules
Is limited to the particular situation
Conceptual learning
Understands the principles (theorems)
Can take the principles (theorems) and apply them in alternate new situations
IMO the vast majority of jobs require ‘Conceptual understanding’. How do you build understanding?
Learning levels:
L1: can execute rules. AKA Procedural Understanding. AKA building a robot.
L2: can understand and implement principles (theorems) others created. AKA Conceptual Understanding. AKA a human.
L3: can deduce new principles (theorems) for yourself. You have become a self improving human at this point. AKA becoming a self authoring human. AKA can create ‘earned secrets’ (ie you can innovate, make new knowledge (theorems), not just learn knowledge others have created).
L4: can build understanding of principles (theorems) in others. You can upgrade others to Conceptual Understanding. AKA quality teacher / coach.
L5: you can build others who can deduce new principles (theorems) for themselves. You can build others who can upgrade themselves. AKA build self authoring humans.
L6: can build others who can build understanding of principles in others. You can build others who can not only upgrade themselves but upgrade you too.
At this point you have built a company that can exponentially increase the amount of responsibility it can take.
Aka building humans who can make other humans.
At this point you have built a company that can make new theorems anywhere and implement them everywhere. You have created a new knowledge (theorem) factory… haha. Yes I love the melding of the metaphor of a factory (makes standardised widgets at mass scale) with new knowledge / theorems (ie 100% custom never seen before output).
How does this map onto Kegan’s Theory Of Adult Development (one of my fav development frameworks - see more here)
Kegan - Harvard developmental psychologist.
Mapping
3rd Order Socialised Mind => L2: can understand and implement principles (theorems) others created. AKA conceptual understanding.
4th Order: Self-Authoring Mind => L3: can deduce new principles (theorems) for yourself. You have become a self improving human at this point. AKA becoming a self authoring human.
The other levels I have put are about upgrading others. AKA being a teacher / coach. While one can upgrade oneself, hopefully one can also help others become eg ‘self authoring’. “We are all players, we are all coaches.”
The capacity of a human body is limited. The capacity of a human mind is limitless.
The only way to do anything used to be with humans; eg farming, eg making widgets, etc.
It would take a farmer a day to plant 10x crops (physical only)
Now we can scale repetitive tasks with machines.
Together with machinery, it takes a farmer 15x minutes to plant 10x crops (physical + mental)
I know nothing about crops so am making this up!
This means that now basically any human can have unlimited leverage. Figure out something new the world needs then scale with machines!
Eventually as machines improve there will be no repetitive jobs left. IMO this is a good thing as then humans are liberated from repetitive tasks. I don’t know about you but I’m pretty happy I don’t have to till the soil with my bare hands to have food!
Soon enough all “L1: can execute rules. AKA procedural understanding. AKA building a robot” jobs will be replaced by machines.
IMO most people only have upgrades done to them by others. They can't do upgrades to themselves or to others.
Often school is a place of getting schooled (aka upgrades done to you or procedural understanding), not a place of learning (conceptual understanding) or learning to upgrade yourself (self authoring or innovating).
We need to be able to build ourselves and others to minimum L2+ (L2: can understand and implement principles others created. AKA conceptual understanding).
Some thoughts on how to do this...
IMO what matters is not what is being taught but how it is being taught.
If you are a manager at work are you teaching L1 procedural understanding or are you building L2+ conceptual self upgraders?
IMO it doesn't matter if you are teaching Year 7 maths, Year 12 English, factory work (eg Toyota pull the line is IMO conceptual understanding)... OR how to build a textbook. IMO try to teach L2+.
Some things can be made well through Procedural Understanding - eg a croissant. You can get to 10/10.
Some things you can get to 7/10 with Procedural Understanding (rules). Eg making a textbook. But to get to 10/10 everyone authoring needs conceptual understanding (principles).
IMO a teacher / manager / peer can guide towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding. It doesn't matter the subject, year level, or job.
IMO a textbook can scaffold towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding. It doesn't matter the subject, year level, or job.
IMO direct instruction, enquiry based learning, problem based learning or socratic discussion can either scaffold towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding.
IMO most people think having a student or direct report or peer get 100% is the goal. Often the path of least resistance to do this is through Procedural Understating. This is only ok if you are doing a job that is ‘robotic’ AKA “L1: can execute rules”. IMO for all other jobs this isn’t enough. You need to know more than how to repeat the exact same task in the exact same context.
I believe the goal is to build students or directs or peers or managers who can level themselves up.
Ie get people to L2, then L3, etc etc.
Some thoughts on how to increase Conceptual Understanding (L3) and hence increase the amount of decisions / responsibility someone can take at work.
Strategy 1: Double Blinding
‘You’ know what to do, ‘Person 1’ doesn’t.
Both ‘You’ and ‘Person 1’ do the task independently and then compare what you have done after.
How to build Conceptual Understanding:
For any point of difference ‘You’ ask ‘Person 1’ why they did what they did and get ‘Person 1’ to compare and contrast with what ‘You’ did.
Then ‘You’ ask ‘Person 1’ to put forward which proposal they like better and why.
Explanation:
This is helping ‘Person 1’ deduce principles (little theorems) and allows you to ask stress testing questions to see if the principles add value.
‘You’: “L4: can build understanding of principles in others. You can upgrade others to conceptual understanding.”
‘Person 1’: building “L3: can deduce new principles for yourself”
How not to build Conceptual Understanding
‘You’ tell ‘Person 1’ what ‘You’ think is better and why.
Explanation:
This is telling someone your principle without seeing if they understand.
IMO this isn’t even helping ‘Person 1’ to “L1: can execute rules. AKA procedural understanding. AKA building a robot.”
Strategy 2: Compare ‘Person 1’s work to work ‘YOu’ did in the past
This is Double Blinding but you have a set of ‘training’ pieces of work where you and others have previously done a task that you can compare the new person to.
After doing the task you need to ask questions in a way that builds their ‘1. Understanding of your principles’ and / or ‘2. Allows them to build their own principles that you can then validate / invalidate’.
Strategy 3: Asking someone to rearticulate
A problem solving session has been occurring and you have put forward your synthesis.
What not to do:
Does that make sense? (getting a yes / no).
What to do:
1. Can you please rearticulate the job to be done for the problem space we are discussing?
Rearticulate = explain in words and logic that are not a derivation of what you have said.
2. Can you please rearticulate my synthesis?
Rearticulate = use words and logic that provide a different path to the conclusion.
Strategy 4: Put forward 3x options and a recommendation for which one to go with
A group discussion has just finished. We need to figure out what to do next.
What to do:
Everyone please have 5 minutes to come up with 3x different options of what we could do and then your recommendation of which one we should go ahead with and why.
Then we’ll discuss each person’s options and recommendation as a group in turn.
After this we then put forward which recommendation we like the most from all put forward.
*aside: a decision ultimately has to be made, companies are not democracies, you typically are not going with a vote at the end for the next course of action. “A camel is a horse designed by committee.”
What not to do:
Meeting owner: Ok I think we should do the following. Are you cool with this?
Comment: it doesn’t allow the space for principle (theorem) creation and comparison.
Strategy 5: ask ‘Person 1’ 3+ orthogonal questions which aim to explain why or why not they think the new proposal is better
This can be mid discussion or at the end of a discussion.
Example 1: New proposal vs Prior proposal
What to do:
How is the updated proposal better and why?
How could the updated proposal be worse and why?
What is the key thing that worries you about the proposal?
Overall do you think the updated proposal is above the line of sufficiency to proceed or do you think more work to de-risk should be done and why?
What not to do:
So do you like New proposal more than Prior proposal?
Example 2: Option 1 vs Option 2
Same questions as above but on totally different options.
If you are considering two different investment options, some possible questions that help promote conceptual understanding
Alright, how can Company A deliver a better outcome than Company B?
How could Company A be worse than Company B?
What are the key variables that you are considering for Company A?
What are the key variables that you are considering for Company B?
Why are you not considering some of the variables for Company B that you are for Company A?
How do you propose to balance the variables for each company together?
Ultimately which company do you prefer and why?
What DA thinks doesn’t make sense:
So should we invest in Company A?
Strategy 6: ask someone to define the line of sufficiency for going ahead
Sufficiency = the line above which you are comfortable.
Eg quality is above sufficiency - eg the tolerance of a part in production
Eg what level of confidence we need to make this decision? Eg as we can reverse this decision easily we need 50% confidence to go ahead vs eg as we can’t reverse this decision easily we need 90% confidence to go ahead.
What to do:
Please define sufficiency for me
Please provide an example of just above sufficiency
Please provide an example of just below sufficiency
What not to do:
I think we should do this, do you agree?
What is “L4: can build understanding of principles in others. You can upgrade others to conceptual understanding”?
On the fly you should be able to make up questions that build in yourself and the other person principles (theorems). And then to see where a principle helps vs hinders and where it works and doesn’t!
This blog is an attempt to try and build “L6: can build others who can build understanding of principles in others.”